That and those "richest" lists only count businessmen who have their riches in easily counted publicly traded stocks. Read the fine print on the Forbes list and you'll see they exclude old money like the baron Rothschild and heads of state like the Pope.
Don't know about Elon, but this is common in the US, rather than sell your stock you take out a permanent interest free loan at a fixed percentage somewhat less than 100% where they hold the stock as 'collateral'. It is a tax loophole, nothing more.
I remember looking into the richest people by actual hard liquid assets(cash, gold, silver) years back(before the Ukraine invasion), and the were overwhelmingly Russian.
But fortunately for him, he is connected to some of the richest people on the planet (and people with real power) so his loans are never ever getting called, and his "companies" are guaranteed to grow at 20% per year pretty much forever. They'll print as many trillions as they need to make it work.
SpaceX valued at 2T (half of fucking apple, it's a joke)? Oh, here's a $100B/month contract to uhhhhh manage some "data" with "sattelites" also the US army wants uhhhh something, here's $500B.
Most of his wealth is debt. If every loan was called in he couldn't afford to pay them even if he liquidated every asset
That and those "richest" lists only count businessmen who have their riches in easily counted publicly traded stocks. Read the fine print on the Forbes list and you'll see they exclude old money like the baron Rothschild and heads of state like the Pope.
That makes no financial sense
Welcome to our whole economic system.
He doesn't make an income. He uses his stocks as collateral to get large loans, debt isn't taxed. He gets lots of money and avoids taxes.
Don't know about Elon, but this is common in the US, rather than sell your stock you take out a permanent interest free loan at a fixed percentage somewhat less than 100% where they hold the stock as 'collateral'. It is a tax loophole, nothing more.
I remember looking into the richest people by actual hard liquid assets(cash, gold, silver) years back(before the Ukraine invasion), and the were overwhelmingly Russian.
Did their names end with berg and stein by any chance?
I think at least one of them was a Kisin.
But fortunately for him, he is connected to some of the richest people on the planet (and people with real power) so his loans are never ever getting called, and his "companies" are guaranteed to grow at 20% per year pretty much forever. They'll print as many trillions as they need to make it work.
SpaceX valued at 2T (half of fucking apple, it's a joke)? Oh, here's a $100B/month contract to uhhhhh manage some "data" with "sattelites" also the US army wants uhhhh something, here's $500B.